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Education PhD. Candidate, BiostatisticsResearch Positions Graduate Research AssistantTeaching Positions Javascript for Shiny UsersAcademic Articles Building a software package in tandem with machine learning methods research can result in both more rigorous code and more rigorous researchAcademic Articles Stochastic Block Modeling in R, Statistically rigorous clustering with rigorous codeTeaching Positions Data Visualization Best PracticesTeaching Positions Improving your visualization in PythonData Science Writings Using AWK and R to Parse 25tbAcademic Articles Charge Reductions Associated with Shortening Time to Recovery in Septic ShockAcademic Articles Multimorbidity Explorer | A shiny app for exploring EHR and biobank dataAcademic Articles Taking a network view of EHR and Biobank data to find explainable multivariate patternsAcademic Articles Patient-specific risk factors independently influence survival in Myelodysplastic Syndromes in an unbiased review of EHR recordsAcademic Articles Patient specific comorbidities impact overall survival in myelofibrosisResearch Positions Data Science ResearcherTeaching Positions Advanced Statistical Learning and InferenceTeaching Positions Advanced Statistical ComputingData Science Writings Classifying physical activity from smartphone dataData Science Writings The United States of SeasonsAcademic Articles R timelineViz: Visualizing the distribution of study events in longitudinal studiesTeaching Positions Statistical Computing in RData Science Writings A year as told by fitbitData Science Writings MCMC and the case of the spilled seedsData Science Writings The Traveling MetallurgistAbout Me Press Great paper? Swipe right on the new ‘Tinder for preprints’ appAbout Me Press Swipe right for science: Papr app is ‘Tinder for preprints’Academic Articles Continuous Classification using Deep Neural NetworksIndustry Positions Data Journalist - Graphics DepartmentAbout Me Press The Deeper Story in the DataBy Me Press The Great Student MigrationBy Me Press Wildfires are Getting Worse, The New York TimesBy Me Press Who’s Speaking at the Democratic National Convention?By Me Press Who’s Speaking at the Republican National Convention?By Me Press A Trail of Terror in Nice, Block by BlockEducation B.S., Mathematics, Statistics Research Positions Undergraduate ResearcherResearch Positions Human Computer Interaction ResearcherIndustry Positions Engineering Intern - User ExperienceIndustry Positions Data Science InternIndustry Positions Data Artist In ResidenceAcademic Articles Asymmetric Linkage Disequilibrium: Tools for Dissecting Multiallelic LDAcademic Articles An Agent Based Model of Mysis MigrationAcademic Articles Declines of Mysis diluviana in the Great LakesResearch Positions Undergraduate ResearcherIndustry Positions Software Engineering InternResearch Positions Research Assistant

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Contact

Language Skills

R
Javascript (d3.js)
C++
Python
Bash
SQL
AWK

Disclaimer

Made with the R package pagedown.

The source code is available on github.com/nstrayer/cv.

Last updated on 2020-05-20.

Main

Nick Strayer

I have made visualizations viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, sped up query times for 25 terabytes of data by an average of 4,800 times, and built packages for R that let you do magic.

Currently searching for a position that allows me to build tools leveraging a combination of visualization, machine learning, and software engineering to help people explore and understand their data in new and useful ways.

Education

Current2015

PhD. Candidate, Biostatistics

Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN
  • Working on Bayesian network models & interactive visualization platforms
  • University Graduate Fellow
20152011

B.S., Mathematics, Statistics (minor C.S.)

University of Vermont Burlington, VT
  • Thesis: An agent based model of Diel Vertical Migration patterns of Mysis diluviana

Research Experience

Current2015

Graduate Research Assistant

TBILab (Yaomin Xu’s Lab) Vanderbilt University
  • Primarily working with large EHR and Biobank datasets.
  • Developing network-based methods to investigate and visualize clinically relevant patterns in data.
20182017

Data Science Researcher

Data Science Lab Johns Hopkins University
  • Building R Shiny applications in the contexts of wearables and statistics education.
  • Work primarily done in R Shiny and Javascript (node and d3js).
20152013

Undergraduate Researcher

Rubenstein Ecosystems Science Laboratory University of Vermont
  • Analyzed and visualized data for CATOS fish tracking project.
  • Head of data mining project to establish temporal trends in population densities of Mysis diluviana (Mysis).
  • Ran project to mathematically model the migration patterns of Mysis (honors thesis project.)
2015

Human Computer Interaction Researcher

LabInTheWild (Reineke Lab) University of Michigan
  • Led development and implementation of interactive data visualizations to help users compare themselves to other demographics.
20142013

Undergraduate Researcher

Bentil Laboratory University of Vermont
  • Developed mathematical model to predict the transport of sulfur through the environment with applications in waste cleanup.
20132012

Research Assistant

Adair Laboratory University of Vermont
  • Independently analyzed and constructed statistical models for large data sets pertaining to carbon decomposition rates.

Industry Experience

I have worked in a variety of roles ranging from journalist to software engineer to data scientist. I like collaborative environments where I can learn from my peers.

2016

Data Journalist - Graphics Department

New York Times New York, New York
  • Reporter with the graphics desk covering topics in science, politics, and sport.
  • Work primarily done in R, Javascript, and Adobe Illustrator.
2015

Engineering Intern - User Experience

Dealer.com Burlington, VT
  • Built internal tool to help analyze and visualize user interaction with back-end products.
2015

Data Science Intern

Dealer.com Burlington, VT
  • Worked with the product analytics team to help parse and visualize large stores of data to drive business decisions.
20152014

Data Artist In Residence

Conduce Carpinteria, CA
  • Envisioned, prototyped and implemented visualization framework in the course of one month.
  • Constructed training protocol for bringing third parties up to speed with new protocol.
2014

Software Engineering Intern

Conduce Carpinteria, CA
  • Incorporated d3.js to the company’s main software platform.




Teaching Experience

I am passionate about education. I believe that no topic is too complex if the teacher is empathetic and willing to think about new methods of approaching task.

2020

Javascript for Shiny Users

RStudio::conf 2020
2019

Data Visualization Best Practices

DataCamp
  • Designed from bottom up course to teach best practices for scientific visualizations.
  • Uses R and ggplot2.
  • In top 10% on platform by popularity.
2019

Improving your visualization in Python

DataCamp
  • Designed from bottom up course to teach advanced methods for enhancing visualization.
  • Uses python, matplotlib, and seaborn.
20182017

Advanced Statistical Learning and Inference

Vanderbilt Biostatistics Department Nashville, TN
  • TA and lectured
  • Topics covered from penalized regression to boosted trees and neural networks
  • Highest level course offered in department
2018

Advanced Statistical Computing

Vanderbilt Biostatistics Department Nashville, TN
  • TA and lectured
  • Covered modern statistical computing algorithms
  • 4th year PhD level class
2017

Statistical Computing in R

Vanderbilt Biostatistics Department Nashville, TN
  • TA and lectured
  • Covered introduction to R language for statistics applications
  • Graduate level class

Selected Data Science Writing

I regularly blog about data science and visualization on my blog LiveFreeOrDichotomize.

2019

Using AWK and R to Parse 25tb

LiveFreeOrDichotomize.com
  • Story of parsing large amounts of genomics data.
  • Provided advice for dealing with data much larger than disk.
  • Reached top of HackerNews.
2018

Classifying physical activity from smartphone data

RStudio Tensorflow Blog
  • Walk through of training a convolutional neural network to achieve state of the art recognition of activities from accelerometer data.
  • Contracted article.
2018

The United States of Seasons

LiveFreeOrDichotomize.com
  • GIS analysis of weather data to find the most ‘seasonal’ locations in United States
  • Used Bayesian regression methods for smoothing sparse geospatial data.
2017

A year as told by fitbit

LiveFreeOrDichotomize.com
  • Analyzing a full years worth of second-level heart rate data from wearable device.
  • Demonstrated visualization-based inference for large data.
2017

MCMC and the case of the spilled seeds

LiveFreeOrDichotomize.com
  • Full Bayesian MCMC sampler running in your browser.
  • Coded from scratch in vanilla Javascript.
2017

The Traveling Metallurgist

LiveFreeOrDichotomize.com
  • Pure javascript implementation of traveling salesman solution using simulated annealing.
  • Allows reader to customize the number and location of cities to attempt to trick the algorithm.

Selected Press (About)

2017

Great paper? Swipe right on the new ‘Tinder for preprints’ app

Science
  • Story of the app Papr made with Jeff Leek and Lucy D’Agostino McGowan.
2017

Swipe right for science: Papr app is ‘Tinder for preprints’

Nature News
  • Second press article for app Papr.
2016

The Deeper Story in the Data

University of Vermont Quarterly
  • Story on my path post graduation and the power of narrative.



Selected Press (By)

2016

The Great Student Migration

The New York Times
  • Most shared and discussed article from the New York Times for August 2016.
2016

Wildfires are Getting Worse, The New York Times

The New York Times
  • GIS analysis and modeling of fire patterns and trends
  • Data in collaboration with NASA and USGS
2016

Who’s Speaking at the Democratic National Convention?

The New York Times
  • Data scraped from CSPAN records to figure out who talked and past conventions.
2016

Who’s Speaking at the Republican National Convention?

The New York Times
  • Used same data scraping techniques as Who’s Speaking at the Democratic National Convention?
2016

A Trail of Terror in Nice, Block by Block

The New York Times
  • Led research effort to put together story of 2016 terrorist attack in Nice, France in less than 12 hours.
  • Work won Silver medal at Malofiej 2017, and gold at Society of News and Design.

Selected Publications, Posters, and Talks

2020

Building a software package in tandem with machine learning methods research can result in both more rigorous code and more rigorous research

ENAR 2020
  • Invited talk in Human Data Interaction section.
  • How and why building an R package can benefit methodological research
2020

Stochastic Block Modeling in R, Statistically rigorous clustering with rigorous code

RStudio::conf 2020
  • Invited talk about new sbmR package.
  • Focus on how software development and methodological research can improve both benefit when done in tandem.
2019

Charge Reductions Associated with Shortening Time to Recovery in Septic Shock

Chest
  • Authored with Wesley H. Self, MD MPH; Dandan Liu, PhD; Stephan Russ, MD, MPH; Michael J. Ward, MD, PhD, MBA; Nathan I. Shapiro, MD, MPH; Todd W. Rice, MD, MSc; Matthew W. Semler, MD, MSc.
2019

Multimorbidity Explorer | A shiny app for exploring EHR and biobank data

RStudio::conf 2019
  • Contributed Poster. Authored with Yaomin Xu.
2019

Taking a network view of EHR and Biobank data to find explainable multivariate patterns

Vanderbilt Biostatistics Seminar Series
  • University wide seminar series.
2019

Patient-specific risk factors independently influence survival in Myelodysplastic Syndromes in an unbiased review of EHR records

Under-Review (copy available upon request.)
  • Bayesian network analysis used to find novel subgroups of patients with Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS).
  • Analysis done using method built for my dissertation.
2019

Patient specific comorbidities impact overall survival in myelofibrosis

Under-Review (copy available upon request.)
  • Bayesian network analysis used to find robust novel subgroups of patients with given genetic mutations.
  • Analysis done using method built for my dissertation.
2018

R timelineViz: Visualizing the distribution of study events in longitudinal studies

Under-Review (copy available upon request.)
  • Authored with Alex Sunderman of the Vanderbilt Department of Epidemiology.
2017

Continuous Classification using Deep Neural Networks

Vanderbilt Biostatistics Qualification Exam
  • Review of methods for classifying continuous data streams using neural networks
  • Successfully met qualifying examination standards
2015

Asymmetric Linkage Disequilibrium: Tools for Dissecting Multiallelic LD

Journal of Human Immunology
  • Authored with Richard Single, Vanja Paunic, Mark Albrecht, and Martin Maiers.
2015

An Agent Based Model of Mysis Migration

International Association of Great Lakes Research Conference
  • Authored with Brian O’Malley, Sture Hansson, and Jason Stockwell.
2015

Declines of Mysis diluviana in the Great Lakes

Journal of Great Lakes Research
  • Authored with Peter Euclide and Jason Stockwell.